


paroxysm

by otqy



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Photographer, Light Angst, M/M, cynical photographer who wants to die! Kyungsoo, insensitive asshole who doesn't understand tragedy! Chanyeol, mild swearing, references to addiction and fire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 14:19:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12134304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otqy/pseuds/otqy
Summary: From the world's judging eyes, he hides, escaping from sight behind a camera. After all, photographs have always conveyed emotions better than his words.





	paroxysm

More often than not, he finds himself holding a lighter to rolls of used photographic film, dropping them to the earth as they catch fire, watching sparks fly into the air as they reduce to ashes, as they reduce to nothing.

 

The film burning on the floor, the brilliance of the flames which reach the sky provide him with a feeling of ecstasy no drug could ever give him. He wonders if that’s why he always goes back, in search of that same film he burns. He wonders if somewhere in his mind, he finds it addictive to watch his work turn to ash and the ash turn to nothing as he buries it deep within the soil and sends it to the back of his mind.

 

Sometimes he questions his reasoning behind taking photographs, when photographs are snippets of history, and that’s exactly what he’s trying to escape. He wants to outrun the past, go so far that history would fail to catch him in an unforgiving grasp. He wants to get away from the foregone.

 

Photographs are a special way to immortalise memories, in a way that no photo you take can ever be deleted from existence.  _ Not entirely anyway, _ he would think, watching his memories erupt in a beautiful orange blaze with a smile, a smile hiding a mixture of satisfaction and grief. For Kyungsoo longs to forget, but also wishes to remember.

 

He’s famous for his photographs, for the ink pressed on camera film that he proudly shows off in magazines. He often wanders around the cities, the forests, the mountains, taking hundreds of thousands of photographs. Though only a quarter of these grace the public eye, the others turn to ash and are hidden away from the world.

 

They lament over his lack of work, staying ignorant to the fact that he has taken more photographs than they could hope to count. He prefers it that way, they would all prefer it that way, if only they knew, if only they knew of what they shouldn’t know.

 

He finds memories so useless, which really makes people wonder why he took up a job surrounded by memories, perhaps it’s a mix of everything. Perhaps it’s something they should not even bring up.

 

He’s passive about his work, showing none of the passion of other photographers in his league.  _ Do I need a reason? To take photographs, do I need a reason? _

 

In the photographs he proudly shows off, they show elegance, peace, serenity. His entire career as a photographer built up from the utopian ideas of the public, their idealistic eyes peering deeply into the beautiful images printed on the front pages of popular magazines. His bullshit, fake-deep captions striking chords within their quixotic hearts, it’s almost like they can relate to his cheerful lines below cheerful photographs. They can never be allowed to find out the truth behind his images, the original, scrapped captions, displaying things that aren’t as visionary as they would hope.

 

Photographs of his happiness come to the light of museums, while photographs of his grief come to the light of a ravishing flame.

 

The flames are beautiful, in a similar way to the beauty of tragedy, the tragedy he tosses into the amber sparks of a lighter.

 

* * *

 

Kyungsoo leads a passive life, where nothing ever happens in the present. Maybe things do happen, though his eyes are fixated on the past, his mind wrapped tightly around his memories and his mind; the present ceases to matter anything to him. He doesn’t look for trouble and trouble doesn’t look for him, because if trouble is sentient, then he figures that it understands that it’s tortured him enough.

 

Living is torturous to him, for living without feeling, without passion and love, is not living at all. It’s merely a clouded existence, where nothing really matters. That’s how he sees life, because it’s been too long since anything has worked up emotion within him.

 

How can you please someone who isn’t looking for anything? How can you upset someone who has never been happy? How can you anger someone who doesn’t care? How can you make someone who desires nothing envious?

 

Kyungsoo’s life is dull, empty, void, whatever meaningless term you would want to use. The sun set in his life so long ago and he has yet to find his sunrise, so he clings to the lights of so many stars, wishing upon them, that someday, something would return the light to his life. No one bothers to remind him that by the time wishes reach stars, the star would’ve long since died, and by the time they return the wishes to him, he’d be dead too.

  
But how do you die when you’ve never lived? If there’s one thing in the universe that Kyungsoo has never failed to question, it’s that. Can you die if you were never alive in the first place? Kyungsoo supposes that his existence doesn’t matter, for people don’t know him, they don’t know his face behind his cheap, old camera, they don’t know his name, having known him by  _ D.O. _ since day one of his career. They would hardly care if he were to suddenly disappear from the scene, frankly, he doesn’t care enough to be remembered, he barely has the energy to breathe at this point.

**Author's Note:**

> it's short because it's just a prologue. i'm pretty new to writing fanfic so i'm sorry if it's bad.


End file.
